Report - ROF Bishopton - Renfrewshire - December 2011

[Teapot]

Had a look around about a week before the actual explore. Place is massive! Overtaken by this site. Visited with chiroptera and Momentum in delightful use of our time, this festive period. Oh yeah and we played a great game of cat and mouse with security that lasted one and a half hours as we dived into the forest and various bunkers trying to find our way back to the exit. Should see our 'debrief' in Momentum's report.

Lots of stuff left in the remaining buildings, of which there are many, but the demolition is quite under way.

[5] The loneliest of chairs...

[7] Looks to me like some milking equipment with a throne in the middle. Anyone know what this is?

[8] If I squint I can imagine the window and the vent-thing immersed in deep eternal conversation.

[11] Spot the explorer.

[14] Loved this room


And some nice wording here and there:

[17]Fuck you, BAE!

Thanks for looking.

 

[BenCooper]

Your pic 7 is a Tangye cordite press - the cordite would be squeezed out like plasticene onto a table where it was cut into lengths...

 

[chiroptera]

Ben, thanks for the info - will let Teapot know.

Also, do you know what those baths are for?

 

[BenCooper]

The tile-lined things are beaters - the nitrocellulose slurry would be circulated in those, where a rotary cutter would chop it up. Exactly the same process as with paper pulp, so the same machines were used - I've seen Bertrams ones all over, though nowhere as many as at Bishopton.

In my pics there are a few with the blades still in place - looks like they've removed them all now.

Oh, and the square tubs they've been stripping out are older paper nitration tubs - four rolls of corrugated paper would be put in each bath and drenched in the acids...

 

[chiroptera]

Thanks for the info - pretty interesting stuff

 

[BenCooper]

And just to complete the info: the things that look like jet engines standing on end are centrifuges used to get grit etc out of the slurry, there are also horizontal drum screens for the same. The building with the piles of bricks was the White phosphorus shell assembly building. The big black-ribbed tanks are potchers, where nitrocellulose would be mixed and stored before going off to be mixed with mitroglycerine to make cordite.